Black Friday extended through 2017 in New Brunswick

New Brunswick — Forget Black Friday, or Black Friday weekend or even all of those Black Friday sales extravaganzas happening all month long at your local furniture stores. New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant announced today that the province is mandating that all New Brunswick retailers extend their Black Friday offerings until the end of 2017.

Gallant held a surprise press conference early this morning in the Regent Mall on Fredericton’s south side where he shared the news with dozens of reporters and hundreds of excited shoppers.

“When I heard Gallant was calling for a presser today, I assumed that he was about to announce who his barber would be for the coming year,” admitted a shocked Silvia Henderson who reports for the mostly unknown news outlet CBC. “That’s why there were so many of us in attendance — we all wanted to be the first to finally break that story.”

Shoppers were attracted to the photographers and reporters who were stationed next to the seasonal calendar and board game kiosk near the front of the mall.

“I saw all of these cameras around and then saw this beautiful man in the middle of them, I thought it was a celebrity!” gushed Loretta Manson of Chipman. “At first sight, I thought it was a young Ryan Gosling. I don’t travel to the city much, so seeing the premier made a great day even better.”

Gallant explained to reporters that if New Brunswick wants to set itself apart from other provinces, it needs to think outside the box and make the province a destination.

When asked what gave him the idea, Gallant said that it was “mainly influenced by the fact that Walmart wasn’t issuing rain-checks on their ridiculous deal on Nintendo 3DS’s.”

“We want to encourage people to come to our province and act like insane jerks just to get a hundred bucks off a new smart TV or whatever,” added Gallant. “So, we’re going to take that one week of chaos and turn it into a full year and see how it goes. If too many people don’t get injured, then we’ll look at extending it even further. Hopefully.”

The premier explained that all businesses must honour their Black Friday sales until the end of next year; anyone failing to do so will face “the maximum punishment enforceable by the government,” which The Manatee discovered is a $40 fine.